Selling Your Car With A Personalised Number Plate? Read This First!

So after many years good service, it is time to sell on the family car. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? What if your prized personalised number plate is on the car already? Should you sell the car with it on and then do the transfer, put it on the new vehicle or put it onto a retention certificate?

selling your car with personalised number plates

The first thing to remember is that once you pass the vehicle onto the new owner, you no longer have ownership or control over it or the number plate. If something were to go wrong with the vehicle, your number plate may be held to ransom!

To be absolutely sure, you can transfer the number plate onto a retention certificate at a cost of £105. This includes the transfer onto your next vehicle so the actual fee is only £25. Your number plate is held on a certificate for 12 months which is separate to the vehicle. You can now safely sell on the car without risk of loosing your personalised plate.

If you already have your new vehicle you can do a direct transfer from the old car to the new. This costs £80 and once it is done paperwork will be back to you in around 10 working days.

Selling the car with the plate on and relying on the new owner to assist is very risky. If you submit the paperwork for transfer and the DVLA require an inspection on the vehicle, the new owner may not be happy to take it along. If this is the case, the transfer will fail and you will not get your number plate back.

To conclude, if you are selling your car which has a personalised number plate on it, either put it onto retention or transfer it to your new vehicle before releasing either the vehicle or the paperwork.